The frantic hunt for a missing tycoon’s wife has seen Texas police begin to comb through a landfill site.
Bexar County Sheriff’s deputies were see digging through the waste disposal site near San Antonio Monday in the hunt for Suzanne Clark Simpson, 51.
They’ve yet to find any trace of Simpson, a mother-of-four who vanished screaming from her $1.4 million mansion in the city’s ritzy Olmos Park area at 11pm last Sunday.
Her wealthy realtor husband Brad Simpson, 53, has been arrested and held over the disappearance. Brad is not cooperating with police and is being held on a $2 million bond.
Simpson’s neighbor heard screams coming from a nearby wooded area shortly after watching the couple – in the midst of a heated argument – walk toward the bushes.
Officers arrived at the land fill location on Monday afternoon and vowed to return on Tuesday.
They said they were searching for evidence connected to Suzanne, whose mother said Monday that she fears her daughter is dead.
In the affidavit for Simpson’s arrest warrant seen by DailyMail.com, it was revealed that Simpson called his brother, Barton, after Suzanne vanished and ‘apologized for all the problems he had caused.’
The affidavit also revealed the couple’s youngest child told staff at school ‘that her mom and dad were ”fighting”.’
She told staff that ‘her dad had hit her mom in the face and possibly pushed her into a wall… that her mom had a bruise on her elbow and that her dad had taken her mom’s cell phone away.’
The missing mother-of-four’s own mom, Barbara Clark, revealed this week the haunting phone call she had with Suzanne just an hour before she was last seen.
Speaking at a vigil set up to honor Suzanne at Lourdes Grotto, Clark said: ‘She called me up and told me things Brad had done to her physically.’
Clark said Suzanne confided in her that about 9pm that night, October 6, Simpson had injured her arm and her back.
‘I came up with an alternative plan for her that she would move in with me and have her little toddler go to the elementary school in my neighborhood.
‘I never got to tell her the plan.’
Simpson is now in custody charged with family violence and unlawful restraint. He is being held on a $2million bond, and is scheduled to attend a bond hearing Tuesday.
While loved ones are still holding out hope Suzanne is safe, Clark said she fears her daughter has been killed.
Asked whether she believes Suzanne is still alive, Clark told KSAT: ‘I don’t think she is. I have not heard from her.’
‘Suzanne, we love you. We need you. And we’re praying for you.’
Clark said she’d like to visit Simpson behind bars ‘and ask him why,’ she said. ‘What happened?’
Simpson, of Olmos Park near San Antonio, initially cooperated with police after reporting his wife missing, but later fell silent and hired an attorney.
On Friday, police released a haunting photograph of Suzanne earlier on the day she vanished, showing her walking through The Argyle in Alamo Heights.
Suzanne was pictured alone at the exclusive, members-only club, wearing a knee-length dark dress and her hair down over her shoulders.
Several hours after this photograph was taken, neighbors claim they heard an aggressive fight between Suzanne and her husband.
That neighbor claims he saw Simpson hitting and restraining his wife, before they both wandered off to a nearby wooded area.
Shortly after that interaction, the neighbor alleges he heard screams from the woods.
Olmos Park Police Chief Fidel Villegas has since confirmed: ‘That night we think she was in distress.’
‘It’s very suspicious though that obviously she’s not going to work and she’s not checking in on her children. That’s an obvious problem.’
‘She may be somewhere, and we just don’t know about it.’
Investigations are ongoing, and local law enforcement has expanded its search to include other Simpson family properties.
Simpson and his family have an extensive real estate portfolio throughout San Antonio and broader Texas.
A thorough investigation of the four bed, five bath Olmos Park family home, worth an estimated $1.5million, has already taken place.
Suzanne’s brother-in-law Barton Tinsley Simpson described her disappearance as an ‘unimaginable ordeal.’
‘We will not stop until we find her,’ he said.